Jan 262023
 

Yesterday Project Veritas released footage of a Pfizer employee on a “date” talking about how his company is “mutating” the Covid virus. I’ve seen a lot of people losing their minds over this, seeing it as evidence of the virus being weaponized. But I can honestly see it the other way: If you are in the business of producing vaccines, you want to stay ahead of the diseases out there. Figure out where things might be going so you can produce vaccines *before* nature does its thing. If the employee is a bit drunk, or not exactly scientifically versed in what’s going on (this is a marketing guy, after all), then a basic, valid explanation can be described poorly and come off like supervillainy. I don’t know, and since there’s legitimate room for doubt, I didn’t think much of the story. Seemed like a nothingburger to me.

 

But then today. As Project Veritas generally does, they released a second video where they confront the subject openly. Typically the subject does the only thing they can and scuttle away, saying little. But this guy… boy, he’s *special.* I think he’s borked both his career *and* his dating prospects.

 

What we seem to have here is someone who has lived a fairly sheltered and entitled life, and the moment things don’t go his way he loses his little mind. One minor decision different in his life a year ago and I suspect instead of a PV video, we’d be watching him on an Adult Daycare video showing all the snacks he eats in a day, then pissing about how unfair it is that he just got laid off from his six-figure, zero-effort job.

 Posted by at 11:12 pm
Jan 262023
 

Because in present Day, everything has to be All About Me

 

Several years before I left Utah I was contacted by an aerospace historian/ museum feller about a potential project. It seemed that a big tech company was purchasing an old Hughes Aircraft hangar with the intention of turning it into office space; I was asked if I might be interested in building a large (IIRC, wingspan in excess of twenty feet) replica of the Hughes H4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” to be hung in the  large open space.  My response was something along the lines of “hell yes,” but it didn’t go much further than that original discussion; like a lot of things it just faded away. Still, I’d dug out what plans I had of the Hercules and started dreaming up how I was going to do it… I’d model it in 3D CAD, lay out the internal structure and have ribs and longerons and frames and all cut out of quality plywood, clad probably in *really* good, really thin plywood, sanded baby-ass smooth and painted appropriately. I had discussions with a local wood shop about getting the many, many parts CNC milled. Woulda been a thing of beauty… and something I could have built several of and presumably made bank on. But it was not to be, and in the years since I’ve not given the project a second thought. Until yesterday…

 

So there was this TikTok video by some vapid person yapping about her day of meaningless food consumption and unproductivity at the Google LA office, built into a former Hughes hangar. Lo and behold, on display is a “sculpture” of the Hercules hanging from the ceiling, visible about 8 seconds in:

My old brain fired up and I contacted my acquaintance who had originally presented me with the idea years ago… and, yup, that’s the place, and that sculpture is what they went with rather than my planned subscale replica. More info and a decent photo of it is here:

HistoricHangarBecomesHistory-MakingWorkplace

There are a number of things that jump right out at me. First, the volume of space available in the hangar is vast… and it *seems* like the volume of space actually used for offices and such is *small.* It appears to be horribly inefficiently utilized. And second, here’s the description of the Hercules sculpture:

Comprised of 2,800 individually hung chrome spheres, this perceptual sculpture by Michael Murphy appears to be an amorphous silver cloud until seen from the sole viewpoint where it reveals itself as the “ghost” of the Spruce Goose.

 

It’s a “perceptual sculpture,” only visible correctly from a single vantage point. Basically, it’s not “real” as such, it’s kinda like a hologram made of ball bearings. That’s… interesting, I guess. but I can’t help draw some analogies: What I had suggested was a real, tangible Hercules, visible as such from all aspects and viewpoints. What they went with was smoke and mirrors. What I had believed the place was going to be was a workplace where people got stuff done. What it ended up being was, apparently a holding facility for people who did nothing of value all day.

 

Would have been a nice project though. Oh well.

 Posted by at 8:42 pm
Jan 242023
 

Up first:

U.S. Poised to Provide Abrams Tanks to Ukraine

Of note here is that this will, theoretically, spur the Germans to send their Leopard 2 tanks. The Leopard 2’s would likely be more advanced than the M-1s; and while there are more M-1’s in the world, the Leopards are closer to Ukraine and there are a number of countries willing to send Leopards. This is of course not pure altruism; they’ll likely be sending the older tanks that were about to be mothballed or scrapped; and if not, these donations will leave tank-shaped holes that will need to be filled with the latest and greatest. “You don;t need new tanks, we’ve got enough at home” no longer works as an excuse if you don’t actually have enough at home.

Additionally: the Russians might finally, rather overdue, be getting their crap in gear. So if they are faced with modern western MBTs, they’ll almost certainly launch their best anti-tank weapons at them. And sad though it may be for Ukrainians to hear, I’d rather modern NATO tanks get battlefield tested now, with Ukrainian crews, than later with NATO crews, on NATO territory. Losing these tanks to Russian weapons now will allow western designers to produce counter systems for when we need to fight Russian forces in Poland or Finland or Estonia or Wales.

 

Also:

McCarthy formally blocks Schiff, Swalwell from Intel panel

Never forget: Swalwell was the one who banged a Chinese spy and threatened to nuke American cities. He should *really* be the center of FBI attention, not sitting on the House Intelligence Committee.  As for Schiff, he tried and failed to tie Trump to Russian collusion. Lots of people tried that, including some who should have known better at the FBI. Speaking of which…

 

Retired FBI counterintel agent reportedly involved in Trump-Russia probe arrested for ties to Russian oligarch

 

Also also: In recent years the NRA has become pretty much worthless in the fight to maintain Constitutional rights, even as they remain one of the Democrats primary boogeymen in *their* never-ending quest to render the citizens of the US into helpless subjects. But they’re finally stepping up a bit:

NRA sues over Illinois ban on semiautomatic weapons

 Posted by at 11:52 pm
Jan 242023
 

So Musk bought Twitter and laid off something like half the workforce… and Twitter *promptly* failed to implode. It seems to be functioning just fine, indicating that the bulk of those canned were not vital to the operation of the company. Now Google and Meta and a bunch of other tech companies are going through massive rounds of layoffs. Will this bring those companies low? There is no reason to assume that Twitter was uniquely loaded with dead weight. In fact, the “influencers” who work at the various tech companies and produce videos of their days certainly indicate that those companies can certainly afford to shed a lot of useless employees and not suffer in the slightest.

Behold Yet Another “day in the life” video that revolved not around actually accomplishing anything, but luxury and eating and eating and eating…

Now, it’s always possible that she was a diligent hard worker who daily added value. But it’s interesting that that aspect of her day got less attention than one snack.

 

Also of potential interest: here’s her TikTik page. Description: “life, outfits & personal growth journey.” Nothing about actually *accomplishing* anything. Lots of videos of her trying on new bits of clothes or lounging somewhere. Vapid, empty, soulless. The amount of money spent on new outfits seems likely to be immense. Does the TikTok thing bringing in income? I dunno, maybe. Perhaps she’s making buckets of cash through these meaningless videos; if so, good for her. But the skills and abilities needed for that – being an adequate clothes horse – seem wholly unrelated to doing a job at a technology company. Scrolling down and glancing at the videos, none of them seem to display any interest or enthusiasm for coding.

 Posted by at 10:07 pm
Jan 242023
 

A 1950’s film describing the “Lobber” rocket from Convair. This was a small battlefield cargo delivery system… rations, medical supplies, ammo, that sort of thing. Kind of a neat idea, but obviously it didn’t go into service. The ability to launch 50 pounds of stuff eight miles just wasn’t that spectacular when cargo planes could para-drop tons of stuff hundreds of miles away, when choppers could zip in and out in the time it would take to pack stuff into the rocket. Today i imagine drones would take on the task… not as fast, but less harsh on the cargo and much more precise.

 

Note that it is also described as a system capable of delivering *nukes.* Well, any rocket that you can swap out the payload could be a nuclear delivery system if it’s got the capability. Fifty pounds just barely covers it. It would be safer for the launch crew than a Davy Crockett with a range of only a couple miles, but 8 miles is still pretty close. The W54 warhead weighed right about 50 pounds and could yield up to about one kiloton. Eight miles would be a safe distance… so long as the fallout didn’t rain down on your head.

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 12:01 pm
Jan 232023
 

So there was a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, Saturday, killing ten in a predominantly Asian-ethnic area. This *promptly* led to the usual incredibly predictable takes:

1) Booga booga white supremacy

2) Argle bargle we needs more gun control

Well… whoopsie:

Man found dead after police standoff in Torrance was the Monterey Park shooting suspect, sheriff says

The killer in question was one Huu Can Tran, a Chinese immigrant. Certainly an unusual form of white supremacist. He was also 72, which is unusual for mass murderers.

Additionally, the weapon used has been identified as a Cobray M-11… which is ALREADY ILLEGAL IN CALIFORNIA. Yet this feller seemed to obtain one. For those unfamiliar, the M-11 is a brick of a gun. It’s a one-handed pistol fashioned somewhat after the MAC-series of submachine guns, famous for *really* high rates of fire in full auto… but the M-11 is *semi* auto. It’s unergonomic. It’s heavy. It’s inaccurate. It rusts easily. It’s big. And even though it’s heavy, the recoil is difficult to deal with given the mass of the innards flacking back and forth with each shot. Why would someone own one? Because it’s fun-ish and cool-ish. Is it a weapon good for mass murder? No more so than  the weapons anti-gunners want to give to the people anti-gunners would have kicking in the doors of gun owners. It shoots the same 9mm round as any other boring-ass pistol, and it does so less accurately, less comfortably and less quickly than your standard 9mm Glock. Why is it illegal in California? Because California, that’s why.

Once again: we don;t need more gun control, we need crazy people control.

 Posted by at 10:38 pm
Jan 222023
 

Every time one of these narcissistic videos comes out from someone “working” at a tech company, there is *vastly* more time spent yapping on about the food they seem to be constantly consuming than the work they seem to take no interest in. Note that even in the second video, the “oops, I’ve been laid off and entered the world of unemployment,” she shows herself consuming, yammers on about consuming, spends Odin knows how much money (that she isn’t making anymore) on empty calories as a way to feel better.

 

Another of these vapid “day in the life of an adult daycare consumer” videos:

And another:

 

And another:

And yet another:

And oh my god another:

 

I guess I get why they don’t discuss their work. Several explanations come to mind, actually:

1) They assume nobody is interested in it

2) *They* are not interested in it

3) They realize, consciously or not, that if they showed people what they do they’d get laughed at because people would realize their jobs are worthless

4) They’d get laughed at because people would see they’re *bad* at their jobs

 

Fine, great. But still… their days are now described as “I ate something that someone else made, then I ate something else, then I ate another thing I couldn’t hope to explain how or where it came from, then I ate some more.”

 

I fully expect that if I ever got it in my head to do a video about *my* work day, it would be crashingly dull. It’s dull now that I work from home, doing CAD and writing and blueprinting; it woulda been dull when I worked in aerospace and honestly couldn’t actually talk about much of it without getting security in a snit. But it never would have occurred to me to spend a large fraction talking about the PB&J sammich I had, or the can of Great Value chicken noodle soup, or the can of pop from the vending machine, or the handfuls of dry cereal or the Gubmint Cheez.

 

 Posted by at 10:30 pm
Jan 222023
 

Note that this was a “voluntary” search, not a “raid.” Which means there had been time and opportunity to dispose of things, and yet the FBI *still* found classified material.

 

FBI searches Biden’s Wilmington home and finds more classified materials

the DOJ “requested that the search not be made public in advance, in accordance with its standard procedures, and we agreed to cooperate.”

 

if only other people had been afforded the same privilege.

 

 Posted by at 9:49 am